A champion of the city’s architectural heritage talks to AD about the latest edition of her go-to resource on local landmarks

Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s résumé is crowded with prestigious appointments—first director of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in 1966; commissioner of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission under four mayors; and, today, chair of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center. Despite her impact on the city’s look and feel, most New Yorkers may take notice of Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s work only when they spot the stylish terra-cotta plaques that ornament significant structures around four of the five boroughs, recounting a building’s who, what, where, why, and when. (The latest will be displayed at the West 23rd Street address where Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Edith Wharton lived.) The plaques are the central mission of the preservation center’s Cultural Medallion Program.

Many of the buildings that bear the medallions appear in Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s book, The Landmarks of New York: An Illustrated Record of the City’s Historic Buildings (SUNY Press, 2011), a classic primer first published in 1988 and now in its fifth edition. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger, then writing at The New York Times, hailed the book’s first iteration as “a pleasure simply to read, for here one can indulge oneself in the very best of New York.” The latest edition, four years in the making, expands the beloved volume by some 200 pages and offers masses of new photographs, some which are featured in a two-year traveling exhibition that opened September 19 at SUNY Plaza in Albany, New York.

Diamonstein-Spielvogel recently talked to *AD’*s special projects editor Mitchell Owens about how old buildings are crucial to our understanding of contemporary culture—and why, of all the extraordinary places in New York, the one she most loves is a humble 17th-century farmhouse.

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: In a world that seems to be all about the future, why are you so interested in the past?

BARBARALEE DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL: Preservation is a living thing. Cities combine the new with the old, the avant-garde with the traditional. This is what I like so much about New York City—the juxtaposition of high-rises with church spires, shops, and houses, cast iron alongside brick and timber.

AD: Many people, you among them, say that preservation and tourism are linked.

BDS: Heritage sites add richness and diversity, but they are also economic engines. This is increasingly the case in New York. Manhattan doesn’t have much manufacturing anymore, but we have the Brooklyn Bridge, the Seagram Building, the Chrysler Building, and hundreds of other structures that people come from all over the world to see.

AD: How did you become so passionate about this subject?

BDS: Years ago I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, surrounded by a great deal of history. That had an enormous impact on me. Colonial Williamsburg did, too. It’s important to acquaint people with historic preservation when they are young, to explain the relevance it has to our lives and why it is our obligation to preserve and care for the buildings around us.

AD: What’s new about this edition of The Landmarks of New York?

BDS: This time around it’s 760 pages, with 1,276 landmarks, including nearly 200 new landmarks and more than 30 new historic districts. It starts with what is likely the oldest building in the city—the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, constructed circa 1650—which is also one of the oldest wooden structures in the country. Isn’t it amazing that a building from [Dutch colonial governor] Pieter Stuyvesant’s time survives in this teeming metropolis?

AD: Which newly minted landmarks might surprise readers?

BDS: The quite splendid buildings in boroughs other than Manhattan. The William Ulmer Brewery in Brooklyn, designated a landmark last year, dates to 1872.

AD: Which landmark is your favorite?

BDS: The Bowne House in Queens, celebrating its 350th anniversary, was the home of John Bowne. Stuyvesant called Quakerism “that abominable sect” and did not think its members should be able to worship as they pleased. Bowne was defiant, however, and held services at his home until he was arrested and banished to Holland. Eventually Stuyvesant’s order was overturned, and Bowne returned to live in his house, which contains many of its original furnishings today. It may not look like much to some people, but the history of that house has enormous resonance in our time.

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